Presenting at GAFE Auckland 2018

Once again I have presented at the GAFE Auckland summit.  My session showcased how I use Google, Seesaw and Explain Everything in my classroom.

GAFE Summit 2018 Opening Keynote

I'm excited to be attending the GAFE Summit in Auckland again this year.  Once again its being held at the wonderful Aorere College, in South Auckland. 

Opening Keynote - The Relevant Teacher - Patrick Green

Taking risks can affect more than just you - what you're doing in your classroom affects all your students.  Patrick works at Singapore American School, where they recently sent teachers around the school to visit innovative schools - those that are changing to meet the needs of their students.  During his trip, Patrick visited California - Da Vinci Innovation Labs (students go to school two days a week and learn from home three days a week) and Sequoyah (mixed aged classrooms, where students are held back twice before the age of 12 in order to facilitate leadership skills). 

Change is difficult

Interactions everyday start to shape students - relevant teachers matter.

What are relevant teachers doing?

• Flipping their classroom and taking on the role of the learner
• Look at what they teach with a whole new lens - is this transferrable beyond my classroom?
• Realises when they are wasting students time
• Not afraid of access to information - students can speak it out to find information
• Allow students to use devices on their exams
• Are not making students do what adults don't do
• Recognise that one size fits nobody - personalised learning is meaningful
• Meeting students where they are at
• Helping students to craft a digital footprint - portfolios have a purpose
• Incorporate autonomy, mastery and purpose into the classroom
• Teaches students to become independent learners and to find the answers to their questions
• Throwing exemplars into the trash as they will not develop innovators and encourage creativity - intentionally leave the exemplars blank!
• Value students not following instructions - independent thinking
• Doing it the way "someone else" says is not a 21st century skill
• Play Minecraft for the 'language acquisition' - play with your students to understand 'their' world
• Give students some side quests - it can look messy but they explore their own passions and interests
• Refuse to accept junk from their students - they expect greater levels of creativity
• They have a super power - they can take anything and use it for learning
• Insert play and inspiring ideas into their classrooms
• Embracing the interruptions as opportunities for imagination and curiosity

How do you stay relevant ........  Be a Learner!
Grow ... and change!

Questions to Consider:

What are you doing in your classroom that you could remove to give your students more exploring and passion time - student agency?

Books to Consider Reading:

The End of Average - by Todd Rose (one size fits nobody)

A Whole New Mind / Drive - Daniel Pink

Websites and Links to Visit and Explore

99U.com

CMDigitalAge.com

iTime - @aliwh_white @shaunyk  (individualising the learning)

Institute of Play

Values of the Institute of Play

Seesaw Ambassador

After using Seesaw for a year and loving the features, I'm delighted to now be a Seesaw Ambassador.

Students in my classroom have loved being able to share their learning throughout the year with their parents and whanau, who in turn have provided valuable and authentic feedback to their children.  

Some of the great benefits I've enjoyed using Seesaw this year include:

• Students being able to share and showcase a variety of learning activities - videos, images, text
• Students seeing (and hearing) the feedback that parents are providing
• Creating activities for the class or small groups to complete
• Students being able to use their voice to record explanations about the artefacts they are uploading
• Reviewing a students journal and quickly seeing their progress over the year

I'm looking forward to continuing using Seesaw next year, and exploring the activities feature in more detail.

The Process of Mentoring - Feedback

As my Google Certified Innovator continues, so does the unpacking of our text, The Mentee's Guide by Lois J Zachary.  Over the past weeks I've been seeking and receiving feedback on my developing #SYD17 project, so its only fitting that I dig deeper and unpack the chapter around feedback.  I feel I'm always quite reflective in my pedagogy, but its always good to think about how you both seek, respond to and act on feedback.

I found revisiting these five action points quite helpful, along with some of the suggested conversation starters, which include:

• Here's the kind of feedback I'm looking for ...
• What would you have said if that had happened to you ...
• Do you mean ....
• Can I ask you a question about this feedback?
• To be honest with you, I need to think about that a little more.

I feel, in order for feedback to be most effective, you need to be honest in what you are asking for, and receptive and really listen to the ideas and suggestions that you receive.  After all ....

Power and Process of Mentoring TWO

Further to my first post, earlier this week I started to delve into the second chapter of the Mentee's Guide "Preparing Yourself to Make the Most of Mentoring."

Preparation is the key to any successful venture, and it seems that being a mentee is no different - it is just as important to prepare for this as for any venture!  This chapter of the book provided opportunities for reflection and review as well as forward thinking to the future.  While I completed all the exercises, I'm sharing just some snapshots of the process as this will enable me to reflect, to look forwards now, and provide a baseline to review in the future.

2.1 Personal Reflection Exercise
The task:  Create a timeline of your career journey, including highlights, milestones, marker events, challenges and disappointments.  Use this timeline to complete the accompanying questions.

Identify your top three professional successes - I've had an amazing start to my teaching career and I feel the opportunities I've been lucky enough to have all build on my start in the Manaiakalani Digital Teaching Academy (MDTA).  My passion for technology started before the MDTA, which is perhaps why I made the most of the opportunity and am so passionate about using the affordances of technology to personalise learning today.  Being accepted as a Google Certified Innovator ranks as another of my top three professional successes - this opportunity has been a challenge, at times hard work but I've enjoyed (and will continue to enjoy) every moment of this journey.  Lastly, but definitely not least, I have had the privilege to work in two amazing schools with terrific colleagues who inspire me daily to continue striving to be the best teacher I can be.

2.2 Creating a Personal Vision

My #SYD17 innovation came about because I believe personalised learning has helped accelerate learners in my classroom and I'd like to inspire other teachers along the same personalised learning pathway.  My journey using personalised learning has taken many hours of my own time to get to where it is now - and time is one commodity that teachers have so little of.  My vision is therefore:

To inspire other teachers to use the affordances of technology to personalise learning through the creation of a community which encourages sharing of resources, ideas and pedagogy to save time and benefit all learners.

2.3 Mentee Skill Inventory

Evaluate your proficiency on the mentee skill inventory - you may wish to share this with your mentor as you look for ways to develop your skills.

2.4 Know your Learning Style

The book refers to David Kolb's Learning Style model, and I know I am a blend of the four types of learners mentioned.  In order to check my own understanding I completed this questionnaire.  I'm not surprised to see a strong leaning towards a reflector style of learning, with less emphasis on the pragmatist and a medium leaning towards activist and theorist styles.  Reading over how the selected learning styles are described, these are where I feel I fit:

Once again, using The Mentees Guide has enabled me to be more formal in my thinking and reflective through this blog post.  I look forward to continuing with my mentee journey as my #SYD17 project continues to blossom.

Digital Citizenship and Safety

As a teacher in a digital classroom I totally understand the importance of digital citizenship, but it's always good to brush up on your understanding, even if its just a reminder of what you already know.   Earlier this week I completed the Google for Education Digital Citizenship and Safety Course. 

The course includes five units, followed by a short quiz to test your understanding (all completely free): 

• Teaching students about internet safety and privacy:  including what makes a strong password, two factor authentication, and privacy settings
• Online safety: securing your mobile device, public and private Wi-Fi, avoiding harmful downloads on your smartphone
• Savvy searching: helping evaluate the credibility of online information sources to distinguish between legitimate and dubious sources 
• Staying safe from phishing scams: how to recognise potential scams, how to check if a web page is encrypted, and what to do if you encounter online scams
• Manage your online reputation: why does privacy matter and how to identify and report inappropriate behaviour

After taking the course and completing each quiz, you receive a recognition badge as well as a link to download Lesson Plans to use in your own classroom.  I'd really recommend spending the time to review your understanding of digital citizenship, as well as using the resources to remind your students.  Teaching safe use of the internet is a necessity in today's classroom, and its never too often to reinforce this with your learners.

Take the Google for Education Digital Citizenship and Safety Course here!

Collecting Teachers Voice on my #SYD17 Innovation

In order to progress my #SYD17 project, I'm seeking teachers voice and opinions about what would be most beneficial to help them personalise learning using technology in the classroom.  This will enable me to adapt my innovation to what would be most useful for teachers.

Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey which will inform my Google Certified Innovator #SYD17 project.  I'm passionate about using technology to enhance personalised learning in the classroom, but appreciate that for today's teachers, the one commodity we have in limited supply is time.  My dream is to provide a place for teachers to share resources, upskill and support each other to benefit all learners.

Empowering Personalisation Survey

The Power & Process of Mentoring

My #SYD17 journey continued this week with the announcements of our mentors, and the above book arriving by courier from the USA.  As I started to read, I hadn't even completed the first page when I was inspired to take notes - what better way than through a blog post!

A mentor is defined in this text as "a guide who helps us define and understand our own goals and pursue them successfully."  I'm excited that I've been matched with a mentor I had the pleasure of working with in the past, and I can't wait to continue on this journey with her.

I've never been a mentor before, however I believe that collaboration and communication would be essential to a mentor/mentee relationship.  Further reading unpacks the following elements as crucial:

Many of the elements of success occur frequently in my day to day teaching and school relationships.  Rather than unpacking each in more detail in this blog post, this is what I'm most wondering or feel is important when working with my mentor:
Partnership - valuing the uniqueness of each of us in the partnership and drawing on the experiences, and individuality of my mentor while sharing my own experiences with her.
Relationship - I'm lucky in that I already have an existing relationship with my mentor so I feel trust will develop more easily because of this.  I look forward to, and welcome honest, reflective and authentic conversations with Fiona.
Learning - I have a belief that I will never stop learning and I certain hope to grow through this experience.  As always, I will be critically reflective, unafraid to try things and learn from any mistakes I make along the journey.
Collaboration - One of the things I'm looking forward to most is the experiences we are both bringing to the discussions that will take place - I feel comfortable sharing with Fiona with an openness that will lead to greater collaboration as well as willing to give and take as required to enable the best possible outcomes.
Reciprocity - Both of use bring different perspectives to this relationship and I look forward to exploring these over our mentoring time.  I'm excited and inspired to have Fiona as a mentor and I hope she enjoys the process as much as I hope to.
Development - This is perhaps my biggest wondering - what will I be able to achieve as a result of our partnership and what knowledge, skills and abilities will I develop over the next 11 months?  While its definitely a wondering, I'm excited about the possibilities and cannot wait to continue the journey.

The Mentee's Guide by Lois J. Zachary with Lory A. Fischler

#SYD17 Day 1

Earlier this year I applied to the Google Certified Teacher academy and was lucky enough to be accepted.  Part of the program entails an intensive at the Sydney Google offices and that started today.

The day started with an (optional) Amazing Race around Sydney.  In groups of three or four we had a huge number of tasks (worth varying points) to complete in three hours.  While public transport was an option, our team had fun collecting clues as we walked around the inner city. 

While the winner is still unknown (and I'm fairly sure it wasn't us) we had an amazing time and definitely explored some of Sydney that I would never have investigated.

Onwards to Google for the start of our Academy.  It's an amazing group of educators from around the world - supported by great coaches.   We kicked the afternoon off with some Moonwalking and found some new friends - our High Five buddy, our Secret Handshake buddy and our Booty Bump - three new friends!

Then it was time to break out Google style - with an Escape Room challenge, my very first (but certainly won't be the last) time of doing one of these.  Our group would have successfully broken out had the locks not been accidentally switched :) It sure was fun and cracking those codes are hard work  -  thank goodness for phones .... and Google!

We then met our team and coach, who we will be working with closely over the coming days!  Our coach is Justine Driver from Auckland, NZ!  Despite going to school together (many moons ago), I've never worked with Justine before so super great to have a fellow NZer as our coach.  We began with initial introductions and shared a five minute story about what has inspired us - later, over dinner, our team name and chant evolved - looking forward to that tomorrow morning!

Lastly, we had a session about the Design Process where we were encouraged to fall in love with our problems.  We had to design a new chair and then face off with other groups to ultimately find the best "new chair" - a huge shout out to the imaginations of the crew that designed the "Volcano Chair" which ultimately won the prize!

Unpacking the new technology curriculum ... #CS4PD

After a great first day yesterday, I'm energised and ready to unpack and talk about the new curriculum in greater detail!


Just do stuff!!! Don't spend a long time talking about it - that's not as engaging.  Unpack after you do it and you will engage and motivate your audience.  Give them a toolkit that they find useful and can utilise in their classroom.

Everything we do is about seeing the ingredients and putting them altogether.  Keep track of the big picture but make it real and bite size portions.  

Unpacking the New Curriculum

There is an importance in everyone understanding 'where we are going' - what is the shared vision?  It is a progression with important building blocks to support and enable students to meet the outcomes.

Computational Thinking

The main focus in this area is on:

• Algorithms
• Data Representation
• Programming

Designing and Developing Digital Outcomes

You can be the creator and use these applications in exciting ways.  We can create something new with our knowledge.  Focusing on:

• Producing quality, fit-for-purpose, digital outcomes
• Locate, analyse, evaluate and present
• Knowledge of operating systems, file management and application software

Where to start ... when to start

Next month is Moonhack Day  (August 15th) a worldwide event to encourage programming with projects available in ScratchJr, Scratch and Python.  A great way to launch into coding and starting to unpack computational thinking.  Teachers are able to register their class and the projects provide stepped instructions.  

A career in technology?

Technology companies have an imbalance in male/female candidates in New Zealand because female candidates are not coming through education at the same rates as males.  Interestingly, developers often join as a 'junior' and earn more than the median New Zealand wage.  Why are the girls not looking at computer science/digital/IT as a career?  How can we address this imbalance?  Why did you get into technology - the two most common answers are creativity and problem solving.